Quick News
New opportunities in Romanian, Russian, and Croatian.
EVENTS
Romanian Film Festival Seattle 2024 – Don’t miss it!
10 Romanian and Moldovan feature films will be screened in Seattle on November 1-3, during the 11th edition of the Romanian Film Festival Seattle.
Buy a festival pass or tickets here.
The Cultural Association Control N (based in Romania) is joining ARCS this year as co-organizer of the 11th edition of Romanian Film Festival Seattle, working as a bridge between Romanian filmmakers and the American public.
See the full press release about the festival and our new collaboration here.
ACTR 50th Anniversary Conference Announcement and Call for Papers
Teaching and Learning Russian as a Second and Heritage Language in a Diverse and Changing World April 25-26, 2025, Online
American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) invites your proposals for the 50th Anniversary International Virtual Conference on the study and teaching of Russian language. This celebratory event will feature keynote talks by ACTR founders and two invited guest speakers, Judith Kroll (University of California, Irvine) and Eleanora Suleimanova (KazNU, Almaty, Kazakhstan). The conference is free and open to members and non-members of ACTR. You are cordially invited to submit proposals on a range of topics in four presentation formats. We encourage scholars and practitioners at different stages of their career to apply. Submission deadline is December 15, 2024. Please see the linked call for proposals for more details, and submit your proposals using the online form.
You can find more information about the event and the keynote speakers on the ACTR website.
The Big Book of Tasks for Teaching Russian
Do you use tasks for teaching Russian as a foreign, second, or heritage language? Please share your experience and ideas in The Big Book of Tasks for Teaching Russian.
Veteran and new teachers from various fields and backgrounds of Russian language instruction are encouraged to participate. We invite tasks for both adult and children’s audiences. International participation is strongly encouraged – please share this call with your colleagues.
Language of publication: English; length: 500 words (additional space may be available but please be concise). This is a practical book of tasks with no literature reviews or theoretical explorations.
The Big Book of Tasks for Teaching Russian is a practice-oriented collection for teaching Russian as an additional or heritage language using task-based language teaching (TBLT). This book offers educators a wide range of practical, ready-to-use tasks grounded in real-world scenarios, making it a valuable resource for developing communicative competence as well as the four domains of listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Each task is tailored to a specific proficiency level and aligns with the TBLT framework, which emphasizes meaningful language use and learner engagement. The collection promotes active student participation and allows for personalization and adaptability to meet diverse classroom needs.
Submission requirements:
- Title of the task
- Short description
- Resulting product (other than language development)
- Materials (if any)
- Can-do statements (3–5)
- Directions for students
- Assessment ideas: How do the students know whether they succeeded?
- Language structures and main vocabulary involved
- Tips for implementation and extension ideas. A sample model of student work expectations (strongly preferred but not required): a link and QR code to the YouTube video, a photo or illustration of student- or instructor-produced work, screenshots of student written responses (both examples and non-examples are invited). Please send attachments to svnuss@alaska.edu
- References (if any)
Submit proposals to the editor Svetlana Nuss, University of Alaska, via forms.gle/VZ3s2SP9S6R7cQft9
Publication timeline:
– Task submissions due: November 30, 2024
– Notification of acceptance: December 21, 2024
– Publication: Spring of 2025
Kindly,
Svetlana Nuss, Editor of The Routledge series on Russian language pedagogy and research
Note: This collection welcomes submissions from teachers who work with university students as well as teachers who work with K-12 students, be it in a public or private setting. You don’t need to be affiliated with a university to participate in this publication. You also do not have to be teaching Russian right now, so if you taught Russian a year or two ago and would like to share a task that your students loved — please, participate. Please feel free to ask more questions either here in the forum or via email svnuss@alaska.edu. I am always happy to communicate with you more about this publication.
New OER: Online Croatian Textbook “Tako lako”
Tako lako, which in English means It’s So Easy, is a new openly-licensed beginner-level Croatian textbook and curriculum developed by Dr. Frane Karabatić in collaboration with COERLL. The textbook aims to develop intercultural communicative competence and builds upon current research on culture teaching in the foreign language classroom.
Visit the Tako lako website: https://www.takolako.org/
SEETAW’s website is hosted by the University of Washington Language Learning Center at: https://depts.washington.edu/seetaw/index.php. Please visit us there. Internationaledwa.org is hosting the SEETAW Blog to provide a common space for sharing announcements, events, and opportunities. If you have information to post, please email it to seetaw@uw.edu.
SEETAW is an informal organization. Although “Washington” is included in our name, we welcome language educators and other interested community members from anywhere to participate in our community. It’s free to join: https://depts.washington.edu/seetaw/join.php.
